Chapter 188: Chapter Five

Kyra

I had a double shift that day, apparently they weren’t just short staffed, they needed to hire another person after me.

Tarek said it was because people quit only a few weeks in because they couldn’t handle the stress.

I wasn’t sure what was so stressful about a bar full of drunk people. I mean the entire place was beautiful when it wasn’t crowded at least.

The lights were a silver blue pointed toward the dance floor, all of the tables and chairs were white, and they had a wooden bar that extended all the way across the room. It was classy, unique.

Just… crowded.

I checked my phone and frowned. My parents were on another dig, I swear all they did was search for mythological things that never existed in the first place.

I’d been sad when they left the US again and even more confused when my mom looked at me as if I was the reason they were leaving.

I shoved my phone back in my purse and shoved it in the employee locker then pulled my short hair back into a ponytail. After washing my hands, I made my way toward the bar to set up the menus.

Tarek was already pouring booze into bottles.

He pulled out two small shot glasses and dumped tequila in them. “Cheers! You’re going to need it today.”

I stared him down in confusion. “We can’t drink on the job.”

“Correction, we shouldn’t drink on the job, and normally I’d agree with you, but trust me on this,” he slid the shot glass over. “You’ll wish you would have had at least ten of these. Trust.” He grabbed a wash rag and started wiping up the bar just as the front door opened.

I wasn’t aware slow-motion walking actually happened in real life.

In movies, sure, they slow it down, edit, boom, you have the perfect entrance. But it wasn’t reality.

At least I didn’t think it was.

But I was fully experiencing it as Timber walked into the bar, his white blond hair looking like a halo over his head.

His eyes went from what I could have sworn was red to a bright blue, and the smirk on his face, well let’s just say I averted my eyes because I was one hundred percent sure my heart couldn’t handle it.

Who looked like that and owned bars? Wasn’t he missing the Academy Awards or something?

I tried to busy myself despite the sudden heat I felt in my chest, and then realized I was literally staring at a shot glass, on the clock, and looking guilty.

“Day drinking?” he breezed past me.

“No.”

“Good.” He took my shot, downed it, and grumbled. “Wish it worked better.”

“Want me to pour you another?”

The corners of his mouth tilted into what felt like a mocking smile. “You could give me several bottles and I promise I could still drive home. It doesn’t work well for some people. I’m one of those people.”

“That’s physically impossible,” I pointed out trying not to stare too hard into his eyes, eyes that looked familiar.

“And yet… here I am.” He grabbed one of the bottles in front of me and then disappeared back into his office. Huh, so maybe that was why he owned bars. Alcoholic? Wanted an excuse to sit at his desk with a bottle of Jack?

I shoved the thought away, grabbed some of the bar menus, and put them on the table just as the music turned on.

Timber chose that moment—what, like five seconds later?—to walk out of his office, deposit an empty liquor bottle on the bar, and say, “Told you.”

He walked in a straight line back; he looked tense, like he was upset that liquor had once again failed him some way.

“Impossible,” I muttered under my breath.

“That…” Tarek appeared out of nowhere. “…seems to be the case with all things Timber, but I promise, what you see, is truly what you get.”

I frowned. “He must have a high alcohol tolerance.”

Tarek snorted.

“What?”

He held up his hands. “Hey, if you want to test that theory,” he eyed all the liquor bottles.

“I’m game.” I shrugged. Nothing else to do since we weren’t opening for another twenty minutes, besides there was something about him, something menacing and comforting all at once. He reminded me of the darkness, of my dreams, and I liked that more than I cared to admit. Great, two days in and I was acting crazy. “He likes Jack?”

“He likes to forget, and he needs to remember,” Tarek said cryptically. “Then again, what do I know, I’m just a bartender with a man bun.”

“And a Scottish burr.”

“And here I thought I hid it so well.” He winked. “Not everything is as it seems, Kyra, remember that. Make the boss a drink, then get your ass back here to work.”

“On it.” I exhaled a breath and started mixing a concoction I’d seen on Facebook—it was basically liquor on top of liquor on top of more liquor and finished off with beer. If that didn’t do the trick—he wasn’t human.

I snorted out a laugh at myself.

Right. What else could he be? A vampire.

I laughed again at myself, picked up the drink, and made the short trek to his office. The door was open. His eyes were locked on the screen of his laptop. “Did you need something, person with the crazy name that makes no sense?”

“Oh, good to know that’s how you’ll address me from here on out, kind of a mouthful don’t you think?”

And nothing, no twitching lips, no smile, just… silence.

And sighing.

The guy sighed a lot, like the world was a burden, like the air around him offended his person.

I’d met him, what? Twice? And I could already see that he just… wasn’t happy, no containment, no inspiration, just this waste of male beauty and darkness.

Something warmed in my chest.

He just… he needed something to be excited about.

Right?

“Here,” I walked fully into his office and set the drink down on the mahogany table. “You said booze doesn’t work on you and well, I like a good challenge.”

He eyed the drink skeptically. “Do you now?”

“Absolutely, if that doesn’t knock you on your ass, I’ll owe you.”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“What will you owe me?”

“Umm,” The air thickened around us. “What do you want?”

Electricity crackled between us, the air was heavy with… something. His eyes didn’t leave mine. “I’ll let you know once I win.”

“Too bad you’ll be completely drunk.”

“We’ll see.” He grinned finally, took a sip, then another. “It tastes like you played suicide with liquor instead of soda.”

“Best game ever, I always mixed my Mountain Dew with Doctor Pepper,” I said, trying to lighten the mood and the tension swirling in his eyes. He gave off heat and something else, cinder maybe? But that would be crazy.

“What a monster you must have been,” he finally grinned. “And you haven’t lived unless you’ve mixed coke with lemonade.”

I made a face.

“Trust me,” he winked and stood, then literally downed the rest of the drink in seconds before handing the glass back to me. “It was a valiant effort.”

“Well, wait for it to kick in.”

“I have a very aggressive metabolism,” he shrugged.

I waited for him to laugh, slur, say he was tired, thank me, kiss me— I mean really any sort of behavior other than him just staring at me with big bright blue eyes and darkness in his pupils would have been better.

“About that favor…” he leaned in, his hand grazed mine as he pressed the glass farther against me. And then his eyes flashed red so brief I probably imagined a trick of the lights. His knuckles grazed mine and then he gripped my hand. The glass dropped onto his desk, shattering into several pieces. He shook his head then leaned forward. “Did you drug me?”

“With liquor? Yes,” I squinted, he seemed… brighter. “Are you okay?”

“You—” He leaned, swayed, then tightened his hold. “So many colors, like a painting, not dull at all. Like the desert, and heat, like the sun.”

“Um… should I get Tarek?” I backed away even as my heart picked up speed at the way his eyes bore into mine.

“Don’t you feel it? See it?” His eyes narrowed, and then he jerked his hand away from me and stared me down like I was a disease. “I should fire you.”

“For giving you a drink?”

He exhaled a curse and rounded the corner of the desk. “Do not touch me again, ever. I don’t know who sent you but no, the answer is no.”

“No?” I repeated. “Timber, I think you just had too much to drink—”

He burst out laughing. “It’s not the alcohol. It’s you.”

“I make you drunk.”

“I was going to say violent,” he spat. “Stay away from me. This isn’t a game. You’ll only get hurt. Run along now.” He flicked his wrist.

“Okay, I think I’ll just grab some water for you and—”

In a flash, he was bracing my body against the wall, holding me up like I weighed nothing, his teeth flashed, were those fangs? I blinked and then he looked normal again, his eyes blazed so blue they almost turned white and then he slowly lowered me to my feet. “Do. Not. Touch. Me.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t speak to me,” he added. “Don’t look at me. As far as I’m concerned, you do not exist. Are we clear?”

I nodded as tears filled my eyes. And then I stumbled back to the bar, my heart feeling bruised, my ego more so. What did I do wrong? And why did a stranger’s rejection make my heart clench?

“Bet you wish you would have taken that shot,” Tarek said with a smirk. “And don’t worry, he can’t help but be an ass. I’m convinced that it’s next to his name in the dictionary, you know, demon, evil, ass, ahhh Timber, there it is!”

I tried laughing past the knot in my throat; it was a pathetic attempt. “A little extreme to call him a demon but yeah… that was… weird.”

“Strap in,” Tarek said under his breath, and then he was gone, leaving another shot poured and ready for me.

I took it.

Coughed.

And wondered if I should bring Timber something to sober up, only to see him breeze past me like he hadn’t just downed over two gallons of alcohol. “Tarek, make sure she doesn’t burn the place down.”

I suppressed a growl.

Timber stopped at the door and very slowly looked over his shoulder and barked. “Wear more clothes tomorrow.”

I looked down at my jean shorts and crop top. “I thought—”

“Don’t think, do,” he snapped, slamming the door behind him.

Tarek held the empty shot glass in front of my face. “One more before your double shift.”

“Like it will help.”

“Let’s just say I’ll make sure it does…” he said cryptically, and oddly enough, I trusted he would.

And even weirder?

I made the most tips I’d ever made at any bartending job.

And I actually felt good for the next eight hours.

I forgot all about my parents moving to another country.

I forgot about the disappointment they tried to hide whenever they asked if I’d found a job I liked or a guy that didn’t completely turn me off.

The answer was always no, I was always anxious, always moving, always searching.

Until now.

Until that night, even after the rejection, something about Soul felt right.

Like the world was a happier place than I originally thought.

Like I had a place in it.

EPISODE: 7 Chapter Six

Timber

It was two seconds.

Her touch.

Long enough for the room to spin, for my world to tilt as a mirage of rainbow-like colors erupted in my line of vision, they surrounded her like an aura, one that pulsed in perfect cadence to the tattoo on my hand.

Disconcerting, that’s what it was.

Kyra was hiding something, or worse, it had been hidden from her, meaning she was a pawn in a very dangerous game that I wanted no part of.

I thought that the games were over now that the werewolves were in their rightful place, now that the Watchers were done fighting us.

The main war was over.

And things were worse than before, because now the line between humans and the otherworldly was slowly starting to blur into something else completely.

I’d never reacted to anyone’s touch that way before—not Genesis, Serenity, or even Hope—a freaking elf and a friend.

I hit the accelerator so hard, it tapped the car floor, and my Ferrari sped toward the forest.

It was a last-ditch effort to get answers, the only way I knew how, to ask the oldest of the bunch what the ever-loving hell was going on.

I didn’t want to face her again.

I didn’t want to look at her and remember the nights spent in her arms, the stolen kisses, or the way she’d made me feel like a god.

It was forbidden.

No matter how much I craved it, seeing her just made the hunger that much worse because I knew only she could quench my thirst, my need to be filled.

If I had any chance of surviving another century, I would ignore the pull toward her.

I hit the brakes and skidded to a stop, sending a cloud of dirt flying up around my car. When I killed the engine, silence roared in my ears. I walked away.

No need to lock my doors; it wasn’t like Bambi was going to steal my car—and if any human tried, they’d be sent to the hospital in a nice body bag, and if they were lucky, straight to the morgue.

I knew she would be here, Eris, the thorn in my side, the balm to my soul. The one woman I wasn’t supposed to touch.

In a cruel twist of fate, she was damned to serve the virgin goddess Danu and wasn’t allowed to physically or emotionally attach herself to immortals or humans—especially the Demon King with creepy tattoos, but that wasn’t the point.

She would at least have information I needed. She was old as hell, just like yours truly, and she knew the ins and outs of magic that seemed to create a pulse-like heartbeat in our world.

Right on cue, my tattoo started to heat on my palm.

It was getting bigger, something was growing inside me, I could feel it, could feel the need to break free—and I was afraid I knew exactly what was trying to break loose.

A soul trapped too long in a body not meant for it.

It felt like fingernails were digging against my insides, clawing away at my ribs—free—did I even know what that meant?

The gravel crunched beneath my boots as I made my way into the forest.

I knew what I would find; visions of women bathing would be the only thing I saw for the next mile as I passed by the large river and entered into the land of the fae.

Danu and the other goddesses stayed on earth—that didn’t mean they stayed in our realm.

Damn, it was going to be a rough night.

I gritted my teeth and passed two golden nymphs who waved in my direction and blew a kiss; both of them had white hair and razor-sharp teeth behind those plump lips.

Petals flew in my direction, and I ducked, careful not to let them touch me; the last thing I wanted was to be imprisoned under a tree for the next decade just because I wanted to touch their petals.

And I mean all of their petals.

It was irritating to an immortal and quite damning to a human.

I passed under the cover of two large trees, their leaves changing from green to black as I made my way farther into the darkness of the forest.

I was used to the way things died around me, or should I say I had been used to it until recently—I’d forgotten how it felt to carry death with me, to know that I would always carry it—a curse of my species.

A curse of what I was.

Power pulsed through my fingertips as I knew it would any time I entered into the immortal realm.

Like my spirit was trying to remind me of my past.

A past I couldn’t remember.

Fragments existed.

There was always so much burning, so much thirst, and the despair of loneliness couldn’t be matched.

And then I gave it up, for what?

Something that was slowly trying to destroy me from the inside out.

I finally made my way to the meadow. Yellow daisies sprouted out from the tall green grass… And there Eris was, dancing in the field like I knew she would be.

Her white dress was plastered against her body, her face lifted up toward the violet-tinted sky.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I took a step toward her, the flowers instantly died beneath my feet. I crushed their petals, bringing death and destruction through the meadow until I was finally right in front of her.

Yellow irises rimmed in blue locked onto me. “I knew you’d come.”

“I always do.” My voice echoed, another reminder.

I shook my head as pain splintered my temples.

“It’s dying.” She reached out and pressed a hand to my chest. “You know this, don’t you?”

“What’s dying?” I trembled at her touch.

Her cherry red lips pressed together in a firm line as her jet black hair whipped around her face, and then the wind just stopped, leaving us there while my darkness overtook the small space where we stood.

Flowers turned to ash.

The sky’s hue darkened to a deep plum purple.

A chill filled the already icy air.

“You know what.” Her eyes went wide. And then she jerked her hand away. It was coated in black soot, she pressed her fingertips together as ash fell to the dead ground beneath her feet. “You should go.”

“No.” I reached for her, and for the first time in my existence, the goddess who had taunted me, teased me, told me I was hers, turned her back on me.

I grit my teeth. “Nobody turns away from me!” My voice shook the realm, birds flew from the trees making their escape.

What the hell was happening to me?

“Once it dies, you’ll remember everything, once it dies you won’t want me anymore…” She shot me a cruel smile over her shoulder. “It’s been fun, though, hasn’t it?”

“Dies?” I replied, dumbstruck.

She lifted a shoulder, not answering, not really giving me what I needed at all.

I showed her my hand, the seed that had now taken root, growing into a damn tree. “What is this?”

“Your curse,” she whispered. “And your only chance at breaking free… Let it consume you and you may get everything you’ve ever hoped for. Ignore your true nature, turn away from your heart, from the restored soul you’ve been given, and you’ll die.”

“Demons don’t die.”

“No.” Her smile was cruel. “But that’s not what you are now, is it?”

“Bullshit.” I was so tired of riddles, tired of games, just plain tired of everything. I grabbed her by the arm and jerked her against me. “You do not turn your back on the Demon King.”

“I don’t turn my back on him at all—few would live to tell about it—but you are not he.” She jerked away. “The minute Hope restored you, she restored ~all~ of you. Your body is rejecting the used soul. It won’t get better, not unless you choose.”

“Choose what?” I was afraid to ask as shame washed over me. I was bad, death itself, wasn’t I?

“True nature can never be denied, not even for someone as powerful as you.” She took a step back. “You have been thirsty for so long, haven’t you?”

Eris wiped the ash from where I’d touched as if she was cleansing herself from every thought of me.

“For years we’ve been as close as lovers,” I reminded her. “And this is it?”

“You cannot touch me without killing me, Timber. Before…” She sighed as a single tear ran down her cheek. “Before you could, but it’s too late. Too late for us, we were doomed from the start, you know the rules. A goddess of the earth and a demon? It was bad enough, wasn’t it? And now that you are… returning to your original state, there is no hope, not even if you devoured a hundred used souls. You are damned, prince of darkness.” And then she bowed and disappeared from the valley.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, long enough that the purple sky went to black, long enough that when I turned around and started walking back toward my car, the path was lined with crows, an honorless guard garbed in cloaks of black feathers.

Each of them with their eyes missing as if someone had purposefully poked them out so they would be blind to the world around them, to the darkness I carried with me.

Creepier than that.

When I finally left the realm of the fae and made it to my car, the darkness had followed.

I stopped walking and turned around as stark blackness filled my line of vision. It should have been impossible.

And yet there I was, surrounded by the very thing most people feared.

I had brought death to the human realm.

And I had no way of fixing it.

Other than calling on the immortal council and once again asking for help I wasn’t sure they could even give.

With a cry, I slammed my hands onto the hood of my Ferrari and looked down as ash fell from my fingertips.

I was well and truly screwed.